Snow Patrol - In The End

In many ways, In The End is a kind of meeting point between all the various sounds and incarnations Snow Patrol have manifested themselves as over the years. In particular, it acts as the halfway house between the previous two singles from their ace Fallen Empires album.

While the LP as a whole came across as a remarkably consistent body of work, standout singles seemed few and far between, so to a degree, In The End, with the resonance of its biblical-referencing key refrain 'we put these childish things away' always seemed like one of the more obvious choices.

While the track's opening is pretty standard Snow Patrol fare, the latter choruses resound with shimmery guitar chords and a real crystalline beauty - a more elegant form of the band, the production gleams with glacial beauty that recalls synth-rockers Delphic. Perhaps that, then, is where the band's future lies...

In The End lacks the sheer power and hook-quality of past Snow Patrol singles, but it more than makes up for it in terms of the new directions it pushes in. The middle-eight alone is the sound of a band still very much in their prime, still operating in the upper echelons of British rock.

In The End is released on the 13th February.